Sky Views: Brexit saga needs to finds its 'goody'

Ed Conway, Economics Editor

Politics, like most novels and films, is at its best when it furnishes us with clear-cut goodies and baddies.

Nixon and Roosevelt; Hitler and Churchill. Darkness and light. It struggles with nuance.

The problem, of course, is that reality is all about shades of grey.

Take Brexit: will leaving the EU be a disaster for the UK economy? There is no straightforward answer.

One could sketch out a plausible scenario or two where Britain thrives outside the EU. Though one could dream up a few more scenarios which look worse for the UK, and one or two which look positively hideous.

The interesting question - as it has always been - is not the one we were asked last year, but what life outside the EU would look like.

And given we look unlikely to have another referendum to answer that question, our fate now depends on the calibre of the people we have steering us towards that new world.

Which begs a question: can you think of any really trustworthy, sympathetic characters among them? Me neither.

The Prime Minister? She who dragged the country into an unwanted election, secured a humiliation and is now seemingly changing her mind on Brexit with every week that goes by.

Can you think of any really trustworthy, sympathetic characters among them? Me neither.Ed Conway, Economics Editor

The leader of the opposition? More eurosceptic than most of the Cabinet, a man who prides himself on being a man of conviction, yet more calculatedly ambiguous on his party's Brexit stance than Mrs May (no mean feat).

The hard Brexiteers? Determined to crash the UK out of the EU whatever the costs and consequences, safe in the knowledge that it will be others (the poorest, mainly) who end up paying the greatest costs.

The remoaners? Seemingly oblivious to the fact that most people who voted Brexit last year didn't do it because they were stupid, or ignorant, or racist, but because they had a genuine grievance with the status quo.

Or what about Tony Blair, who still thinks there's a chance everyone in the country, and in Parliament, will change their minds?

What about Tony Blair, who still thinks there's a chance everyone in the country, and in Parliament, will change their minds?Ed Conway, Economics Editor

Or Jean-Claude Juncker - who could potentially put the whole thing to bed by simply giving Britain some more controls over migration, but won't, because of a vague rule on freedom of movement which was never intended to be as concrete as it is inside his head?

Can you think of a single protagonist who would earn your respect during this saga?

Maybe, just maybe, David Davis, who has attempted to grasp the complexities of the task at hand rather than ranting from the sidelines like many of his colleagues.

Ken Clarke, perhaps, who never changed his position on the EU, but who - unlike Mr Blair - has realised that you can't simply dismiss referendum majorities as inconvenient mistakes?

Image:Maybe David Davis can become the UK's Brexit 'hero'

For the most part, though, this feels rather like a dismal modernist 20th century novel: no characters to side with. No-one to sympathise with.

On the one hand, for journalists like me, that makes the Brexit saga rather a frustrating one to cover.

The vast majority of politicians (on both sides) simply haven't properly engaged with the challenges of Brexit.

Far from diving into the economics or indeed the social frustrations that underpinned the last two national polls, they have simply carried on fighting their own battles.

The one thing worse than barrelling your way towards a possible cliff edge is doing it in the fog, and yet that is what we are doing.

On the other hand, it makes another side of our job easier. As a broadcast journalist, it is my duty not to take sides in political battles like this.

The fact that there are no goodies and no baddies here has made that task considerably easier.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.